Other books that might interest you

• 

  Prosecuting drug crimes

  PBS NewsHour

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Nearly half of the nation’s prisoners are serving time for drug related crimes. Judy Woodruff gets debate from Mary Price of Families Against Mandatory Minimums and William Otis of Georgetown Law School on Attorney General Eric Holder’s push to scale back mandatory minimum sentences for low-level, non-violent drug offenders.

  Show book

• 

  For the Boys - The True Account...

  N.C.R. Davis

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  A month after her 24th birthday, Lt. Mary Elizabeth Balster collapses among the rubble of a shelled supply room. On the night of November 30, 1944, holed up in the Heinrich Himmler Barracks in Morhange, France, Lt. Balster's evac receives a typical patient load, but this time one of the admissions is a 19-year-old tanker she'd nursed back to health five months before in Normandy. The charge nurse on Surgical gently informs the lieutenant that the private is critical. Rising determined to save him, Balster limps toward the shelled supply room determined to search for any blood plasma bottles still intact. 
   
   
   
  Recaptured from her mother's reminiscences and letters home, N. C. R. Davis takes listeners through every heat-of-battle harrowing moment as Balster lived it, achieving a rare glimpse of one nurse's point of view during the latter part of the European conflict. 
   
   
   
  The book mixes Lt. Balster's observations, memories, and dreams to tell the story of a richly rebellious woman trying to navigate her life while nursing wounded and dying frontline soldiers. Her strong-willed, beguiling personality fosters the grit necessary for her success as a combat nurse, but these same characteristics cause two men to fall in love with her. And the personal cost of war comes to a heartrending conclusion, as she must choose one man over the other.

  Show book

• 

  My Venice and Other Essays

  Donna Leon

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Insightful essays on Italy and the arts from the New York Times bestselling authorDonna Leon’s wildly popular novels starring Venetian Commissario Guido Brunetti have often been praised for their insight into culture, politics, family life, and the history of Venice, one of the world’s most treasured cities and her home for over thirty years. My Venice and Other Essays collects over fifty of Leon’s funny, charming, and passionate essays on subjects that range from battles over garbage in the canals to troubles with rehabbing Venetian real estate. Leon shares episodes from her life in Venice, explores her love of opera, and reflects on the Italian man. With poignant observations and humor, My Venice and Other Essaysis a treat for lovers of Italy and La Serenissima.

  Show book

• 

  Seeing in Beautiful Precise...

  Temple Grandin

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Animal expert Temple Grandin describes the benefits of the concrete thinking that accompanies her autism, in "Seeing in Beautiful, Precise Pictures," her contribution to NPR’s This I Believe series. This I Believe is a National Public Radio program that features Americans, from the famous to the unknown, completing the thought that begins with the series title. The pieces that make up the program compel listeners to re-think not only what and how they have arrived at their own personal beliefs, but also the extent to which they share them with others.Featuring a star-studded list of contributors that includes John McCain, Isabel Allende, and Colin Powell, as well as pieces from the original 1950's series including Helen Keller and Jackie Robinson, the This I Believe collection also contains essays by a Brooklyn lawyer, a woman who sells yellow pages advertising in Fort Worth, and a man who serves on the state of Rhode Island's parole board. The result is a stirring, funny and always provocative trip inside the minds and hearts of a diverse group of Americans whose beliefs, and the incredibly varied ways in which they choose to express them, reveal the American spirit at its best.This short audio essay is an excerpt from the audiobook edition of the This I Believe anthology.

  Show book

• 

  The Big Book of Spy Trivia - Spy...

  Bernadette Johnson

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Discover the fascinating true stories of spies and secret agents throughout history in this ultimate collection of espionage trivia. 
   
  Whether you’re a wannabe 007 or just a fan of subterfuge, the fun facts and legendary stories in this big book of spy trivia are sure to shock and fascinate. Discover how the most infamous spy organizations like the CIA and MI6 came began, how they recruit agents, and how they have helped shape world events. You’ll even learn real tactics that spies use on missions, from escaping zip ties to reading the body language. This collection spans centuries and countries, including:  
   
  • One of history’s first spy operations: the Trojan Horse in ancient Greece 
   
  • America’s first spy organization: George Washington’s Culper Ring  
   
  • Real KGB spies from the Cold War era: American citizens Ethel and Julius Rosenberg 
   
  • And much more! 
   
  This fact-packed book quizzes readers on their spy knowledge, from pop culture icons to unsung heroes that history books have forgotten.

  Show book

• 

  Selected Travel Writing -...

  Graham Greene

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  A pair of revelatory travel memoirs from “a superb storyteller . . . [who] had a talent for depicting local color” (The New York Times).   “One of the finest writers of any language,” British author Graham Greene embarked on two awe-inspiring and eye-opening journeys in the 1930s—to West Africa and to Mexico (The Washington Post). Greene would find himself both shaken and inspired by these trips, which would go on to inform his novels.  Journey Without Maps: When Graham Greene set off from Liverpool in 1935 for what was then an Africa unmarked by colonization, it was to leave the known transgressions of his own civilization behind for those unknown. First by cargo ship, then by train and truck through Sierra Leone, and finally on foot, Greene embarked on a dangerous and unpredictable 350-mile, four-week trek through Liberia with his cousin and a handful of servants and bearers into a world where few had ever seen a white man. For Greene, this odyssey became as much a trip into the primitive interiors of the writer himself as it was a physical journey into a land foreign to his experience.   “One of the best travel books [of the twentieth] century.” —The Independent  The Lawless Roads: This eyewitness account of religious and political persecution in 1930s Mexico inspired The Power and the Glory, the British novelist’s “masterpiece” (John Updike). In 1938, Greene, a burgeoning convert to Roman Catholicism, was commissioned to expose the anticlerical purges in Mexico. Churches had been destroyed, peasants held secret masses in their homes, religious icons were banned, and priests disappeared. Traveling under the growing clouds of fascism, Greene was anxious to see for himself the effect it had on the people. Journeying through the rugged and remote terrain of Chiapas and Tabasco, Greene’s emotional, gut response to the landscape; the sights and sounds; the oppressive heat; and the people’s fear, despair, resignation, and fierce resilience makes for a vivid and powerful chronicle.   “[A] singularly beautiful travel book.” —New Statesman

  Show book